DUP to end Brexit boycott, restore power-sharing in N. Ireland

The Democratic Unionist Party agreed to end its boycott of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing assembly, ending two years of political paralysis which left the region unable to make policy decisions and prevented Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s UK government from closing the book on Brexit.

Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP’s leader, has spent months seeking concessions from Sunak’s ministers even as hardline members of his party — which campaigns for closer ties to the UK — refused to accept any compromise in their protest over post-Brexit trading rules in Northern Ireland.

“We are prepared to move forward,” Donaldson told reporters outside Belfast early Tuesday, following talks with the DUP’s executive. The decision is contingent on the UK implementing promises, he said, including legislation some unionists see as strengthening the region’s place in the UK. “Upon that basis the DUP would support the calling of a Northern Ireland assembly.”

The UK government has offered a £3.3 billion ($4.2 billion) regional spending package to try to entice the DUP back into government, conditional on the party’s return to the devolved government.

The DUP withdrew from the region’s Stormont assembly in February 2022, arguing the Brexit deal then Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed with the European Union undermined Northern Ireland’s place in the UK. What angered many unionists was the effective border in the Irish Sea, which kept Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market for goods, even after the rest of the UK left.

The party came under intense pressure from world leaders to end their protest especially around last year’s anniversary of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, of which power-sharing is a key component. Former US President Bill Clinton, who was influential in the deal that ended decades of sectarian violence in the Northern Ireland, said the dispute was holding the region back and that it was “time to get this show on the road.”

But the DUP was the only major political party to oppose the peace deal a quarter of a decade ago, and similarly regarded the Brexit deal as hurting unionist interests in Northern Ireland. That was the case even after Sunak agreed with the EU to tweak post-Brexit trading rules to make them less disruptive, a deal known as the Windsor Framework.

The DUP’s resistance finally ended — though some members are still likely to oppose the move — at a meeting of the party executive, which began Monday and ran into the early hours of Tuesday. 

“My party has acted decisively tonight,” Donaldson said. He said the DUP had won concessions on checks on goods traveling between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, which Sunak’s government will set out in the coming days.

The decision will come as a relief to Sunak because the stalemate in Northern Ireland drew attention to the unfinished issues around Brexit. 

Still, the political boost will likely be limited in Westminster. The UK government and British lawmakers are often accused of overlooking issues affecting Northern Ireland, which has the smallest economy of the UK’s four constituent parts and a population approaching 2 million people.

For Northern Ireland, though, the benefit could be immediate. Without a functioning assembly, some public services have been severely disrupted, while hundreds of thousands of workers have gone on strike because they have been unable to secure a pay rise during the cost of living crisis.

Supporters of the region’s post-Brexit settlement expect a boon for Northern Ireland’s economy by keeping it with one foot in both the UK and EU. It makes it “the world’s most exciting economic zone,” Sunak said last year, adding that US companies were “queuing up” to invest in the region.

Northern Ireland’s economy was expected to grow by around 0.6% in 2023, the strongest growth of any UK area outside of London, according to a PwC report from November last year. That’s because of greater certainty provided by the Windsor Framework, as well as an overweight public sector that is sheltered from consumer spending pressures, the consultancy said.

There is a broader question about where the last two years have left the region’s politics, and unionism in particular. The Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein has held the largest share of seats in Stormont since the last election in 2022, and critics have suggested the DUP’s real objection to taking its place in the government is due to Northern Ireland having a Sinn Fein first minister.

Meanwhile there are fundamental differences with unionism, which were laid bare when details of the meeting of the DUP’s executive, which was designed to be private and held outside Belfast for that purpose, were leaked and posted on social media by a prominent critic of Donaldson.

“I say to my fellow unionists, when are we ever going to learn that a divided unionism is not a recipe for winning elections?” Donaldson said. “Part of what we are seeking to do with these proposals is to ensure that the case for the union is made.”